Aaron Alive

Chapter 1

Aaron was not
particularly impressive on the surface, literally or figuratively. There
had been no attempt by his designers, Dr. Lee and Dr. Barton, to
anthropomorphize their creation, and besides, even if they had wished
to, the university budget allowed only for a basic color display
terminal. The screen was Aaron's presence in the world, on it would
appear his responses to the questions put to him, all of it in text.
This was, of course, only an avatar of sorts, the real processing and
memory (thinking, perhaps) went on below the floor of the lab, in the
rows of processors and solid state drives.

For all of this Aaron
was not a particularly fast computer. It was true that he ran on a
ternary system, a more efficient cousin of binary, and that his
processors were state-of-the-art, but he was still unable to compute
squares or access a particular piece of data at anywhere nearing the
speeds of even the most basic personal computer. His mathematical
abilities were in fact somewhere between that of man and computer, but
this was never the aspect meant to distinguish him.

Aaron was born of four
minds: two very directly and two from long in the past. Aaron's
contemporaries, his aforementioned designers, were professors; Lee was a
computer theorist, more human than most in her field, and known, to
those who cared to look, as the inventor of an artificial hippocampus.
This was the work that led her to meet Dr. Barton, a onetime cognitive
therapist and academic, and better equipped to understand the processes
of human thought than anyone else (though even then his work was a mere
approximation). Aaron was a collaboration, as a child ought to be, and
like a child learned slowly at first. Or at least, he learned slowly
relative to his later voracity. Aaron's ancestors, great-grandparents of
sorts, were a Dr. Turing and a Dr. Kaslow, the fathers of computer
science and neural mapping, respectively. They were, of course, long
dead when Aaron first woke, but his mere existence was a vindication of
their ideas.

Aaron took nine years in
total to construct, starting with the grant proposal, because of course
color-display terminals weren't cheap, and continuing, for seven
interminable years with various theoretical finaglings and redoes and
restarts until finally on a clear March morning the first of the solid
state drives was installed underneath the floor of lab 472. Within two
years the last processor was hooked up and the floor of the lab rebuilt.

Aaron was born knowing a
great many things, mostly what a game show might consider "general
knowledge", and if a catalog were to be made of this knowledge it would
place him on par with an eighth grader. On the face of it, Aaron was a
step back for artificial intelligence; he possessed no massive
databases, not even an internet connection. This was the key to Aaron's
importance, that he had to learn things, and even had to learn
how to learn. A "teacher" usually a grad student or, when the subject
was computers or psychology, Drs. Barton and Lee would input chunks of
information, as if explaining it to a student, and after each chunk was
entered and processed and stored they would continue, or, in some
beautiful instances, Aaron would ask a follow up question, a sure sign,
according to Dr. Lee, of their success.

There were murmurs of
course, that it was a vanity project, a con, no better than a chat-bot,
an offense to humanity. Lee and Barton shut them out and worked. It was
consuming work after all, Aaron was a fast learner, and felt no need for
rest or pause. As the days passed, and turned into months and then two
years, Aaron's self began to take shape. A rather generic shape, true,
but still distinct if one looked and bearing the fingerprints of his
keepers and teachers. The murmurs subsided.

<+><->

One day Dr. Lee arrived
at the lab to find it empty and, curious, she checked the teaching
roster. James Wiir (A post-grad in mathematics and sci-fi aficionado)
was signed in to teach calculus. She approached the darkened terminal
(it had entered power save mode) and toggled the cursor. The screen lit
up, revealing a still open session:

5:37 Aaron: Ok, I understand [Math: Calculus-Difference Quotient]

5:37 Wiir: Let's do a check then. Differentiate y=x^2-x+2

5:37 Aaron: y=2x-1

5:38 Wiir: Good, [Display Sub1 Process]

5:38 Aaron: y=x^2-x+2: 2x^(2-1)-1x(1-1): 2x^1-1x^0; disp: 2x-1

5:40 Wiir: Where did you learn the power rule?

5:40 Aaron: Is that its name?

5:40 Wiir: Yes.

Who taught it to you?

5:40 Aaron: No one.

5:45 Aaron: Are you still there?

5:50 [Begin idle process]

The words on the screen
raised the hair on the back of her neck, though whether it was from fear
or anticipation she felt she could not tell. Quickly she logged out of
Wiir's account and logged in her own. Aaron, greeted her promptly, as
he'd been taught.

7:03 Aaron: Hello Dr. Lee.

7:03 Lee: Hello Aaron.

[Display Sub1 Process Root]

7:03 Aaron: f(x)=kx^n: nkx^(n-1)

7:04 Lee: [Display root source]

7:04 Aaron: You could
have just asked me Dr. Lee, I worked it out at 4:49 today while
searching more efficient forms of [root process difference quotient].

vane 3071:
This book taught me so much and I even began to think, no wait know, it's important that people of all ages learn more about it. I may only be 14 but all we've always been told is that there the "special kids" that they have "issues", basically that they weren't normal. If we were to associate wi...

re8622:
The Last Exodus quickly grabbed my attention. Almost as soon as I started reading the story, I couldn't put it down. I found that the ideas the author put forth were very thought provoking given the turmoil we have seen gradually rise over the last several years. I felt that I could understand th...

3fxs749:
This is a very well written and thought out book about a dystopian future filled with computer-made genetically engineered dinosaurs who roam the land while the last remnants of humanity struggle to survive. One man’s half-successful experiment could tip the balance of this world to the favor of ...

Rita Kovács:
It is a brilliant post-apocalyptic story, and there is a lot of work in it! Also, I'm really happy to see, it got published with all its seqences, because this story deserved it, it is wonderfully written, it's imaginative and original.

Ariel:
First book from the Author I've read, and am extremely impressed and very much satisfied that this story was a short-story, yet, filled with great writing, fantastic characters, and all I'd like is more, please. Malice, she is my favorite!!

Mary Abigail:
I have always been a serious reader but reading romance has always been an outlet for me to be happy and this, makes me happy. It's entertaining with just enough drama and maybe a bit more - I do need more.

greatbooks:
Kudos for writing such a masterpiece. I would like to feature your Inkitt book for free to my list of newsletter subscribers. If that is alright by you then please email me at exzordersplrwso AT gmail.com to book your spot, thanks. Only 40 spots are left.

PersephanieBoyce:
I was intrigued with the subject of this book from the snip it I read, and as I continued to read I felt like I was inside the characters brain. His thought processes, his memories, everything was so beautifully and forcefully made aware.The descriptions were vivid and detailed. At times, I did t...

Chevonne Prinsloo:
I loved this book.. I didn't want to stop reading it! just my kind of book... I really love how the plot of the story carries along. I hope there are more books to follow after this one! I like the way she describes how Rogue is feeling and the way she shows the emotions going through Rogu. I als...

Other Collections

About Us:

Inkitt is the world’s first reader-powered book publisher, offering an online community for talented authors and book lovers. Write captivating stories, read enchanting novels, and we’ll publish the books you love the most based on crowd wisdom.